I was sitting on my back porch the other morning, watching a robin struggle with a particularly stubborn worm, and it hit me how much of my life I spend trying to avoid that exact kind of struggle. We’ve become obsessed with the shortcut. If there’s a way to do something in five minutes instead of fifty, we take it. If there’s a way to buy it instead of make it, we’re clicking “buy now” before we’ve even thought it through. And look, I get it. I’m as tired as anyone else. But lately, I’ve been wondering if we’re trading away something pretty important in exchange for all that saved time.
Last month, a kitchen chair I’ve had for a decade finally gave up. The leg didn’t just wobble; it completely detached. My first instinct was to pull up a website and find a replacement. It would have been there by Tuesday. But instead, I found myself in the garage, looking at a dusty tub of wood glue and some old clamps I hadn’t touched since the Obama administration. I spent three hours—three whole hours—cleaning out the old joint, sanding back the dried resin, and figuring out how to get the tension just right. It was frustrating. I got glue on my favorite sweater. I cursed under my breath more than once. But when I finally sat in that chair that evening, I felt a weird, quiet surge of pride that a new purchase could never give me.
It wasn’t just about the chair. It was about the friction. We’ve spent so much energy removing friction from our lives that we’ve forgotten that friction is often what gives things their grip, their texture, and their meaning. This isn’t a manifesto against modern life, but maybe it’s a little nudge to remember why the “hard way” still matters.
The invisible cost of being too efficient
We’re taught from a young age that efficiency is the ultimate goal. In our jobs, in our workouts, even in our hobbies, the question is always: how can we get the result faster? We want the body without the months of boring lifting. We want the garden without the weeding. We want the sourdough bread without the four days of nursing a starter that smells like a damp basement.
The problem is that when you skip the process, you skip the relationship you build with the thing you’re doing. There’s a psychological “buy-in” that happens when you invest your own physical or mental labor into something. It’s why that sweater you spent six months knitting—even with the one sleeve that’s slightly longer than the other—is the first thing you’d grab in a fire. The efficiency trap convinces us that the result is the only thing that matters, but the result is actually just the byproduct. The real “thing” is the time you spent getting there.
I’ve noticed that when I rush through everything, my days start to feel like a blur of completed tasks. There’s no weight to them. It’s like eating a meal in pill form. You might get the nutrients, but you didn’t taste the garlic, and you didn’t feel the heat of the stove. Doing things the hard way forces you to be present. You can’t really “zone out” when you’re trying to figure out why a piece of wood won’t fit into a groove.
The weirdly meditative quality of manual labor
There’s something about using your hands that clears the mental cobwebs in a way that “relaxing” in front of a screen just doesn’t. I think it’s because manual tasks require a very specific type of focus. It’s not the high-stress focus of a deadline; it’s a rhythmic, tactile focus. Whether it’s chopping vegetables for a stew, weeding a garden bed, or even just washing a car by hand instead of driving through the automatic wash, these moments allow our brains to idle.
Why my garden is a mess, and why I like it
My neighbor has a perfectly manicured lawn. It’s like a carpet. He pays a service to come every Wednesday, and they’re in and out in twenty minutes. My yard, on the other hand, is a constant battle between me and the dandelions. I spend my Saturday mornings out there, knees in the dirt, tugging at roots. Most people would say my neighbor is the smart one. He has his Saturdays free. But while he’s inside watching TV, I’m out there noticing how the soil feels after a rain, or seeing the way the light hits the maples at 9:00 AM.
That physical connection to our environment is something we’re losing. We live in a world of smooth glass and plastic. Touching dirt, feeling the grain of wood, or the resistance of a wrench—it grounds us. It reminds us that we are physical beings in a physical world, not just brains floating in a digital soup. It’s hard to feel anxious about an email when you’re worried about not stripping a screw.
- It forces a slower pace of thought.
- It provides a tangible sense of accomplishment.
- It creates a “memory” of the task in your muscles.
- It builds a tolerance for frustration—a skill we all could use more of.
Learning the language of the things we own
If you only ever buy finished products, you never learn how things actually work. There’s a certain empowerment that comes from understanding the “guts” of your life. When you take something apart to fix it, you’re learning its language. You’re seeing the logic of the person who designed it. You’re realizing that the world isn’t just a series of black boxes that work by magic.
I remember when I decided to learn how to change my own oil. It was messy, it took me three times longer than the guy at the shop, and I ended up with a stain on the driveway that’s still there to this day. But the next time I drove that car, I felt differently about it. I was more in tune with the engine. I was listening for sounds I wouldn’t have noticed before. I wasn’t just a passenger; I was a caretaker. We don’t “take care” of much anymore. We use things until they break, and then we replace them. But taking care of something—maintaining it, repairing it—that creates a sense of stewardship.
This applies to our intellectual lives, too. It’s easy to read a summary of a book. It’s hard to sit with the actual text for ten hours and wrestle with the author’s ideas. But the summary doesn’t change you. The struggle with the text does. The “hard way” of learning—taking notes by hand, re-reading difficult passages, sitting in the discomfort of not understanding—is where the actual growth happens.
The social side of the “Hard Way”
It’s funny how doing things the slow way actually brings people together. If I buy a loaf of bread at the store, I don’t talk to anyone about it. But if I spend a day baking a sourdough loaf and bring it to a friend’s house, we talk about the crust, the crumb, the weird weather that made the dough rise faster than usual. It becomes a conversation piece. It has “soul” because it has your time baked into it.
We value things more when we know the effort that went into them. This is why we treasure a hand-written letter more than a text message. The text is efficient. The letter is inefficient. It required a stamp, an envelope, a pen, and the physical act of walking to a mailbox. But that inefficiency is exactly why it’s meaningful. It says, “I cared enough about you to do this the hard way.”
In a world that’s increasingly automated and sterile, these little “inefficiencies” are what keep us human. They are the ways we signal to each other that we’re still here, still trying, and still willing to put in the work for things that matter.
Finding the balance without going overboard
Now, I’m not saying we should all go out and start churning our own butter or building our own computers from scratch. I’m not a martyr for the 1800s. I like my microwave as much as the next guy. But I think we can find a middle ground. We can choose a few things in our lives to do “the hard way” just for the sake of the process.
Maybe it’s deciding to walk to the grocery store once a week instead of driving. Maybe it’s brewing your coffee with a manual press instead of a pod machine. Maybe it’s finally trying to fix that leaky faucet yourself instead of calling the plumber right away. It’s not about being perfect or being a master craftsman. It’s about re-introducing a little bit of healthy friction back into your day-to-day existence.
I’ve found that when I choose the harder path in one area of my life, it spills over into others. I become more patient. I become a better listener. I stop looking for the “exit” in every conversation and start actually enjoying the middle of it. It’s a bit like exercise for the soul. You don’t do it because it’s easy; you do it because it makes you stronger.
A few final thoughts on the value of a sore back
Last weekend, I finally finished a project I’d been putting off for years: building a small stone retaining wall in the corner of my yard. I didn’t use a kit. I just gathered stones from around the property and spent two days fitting them together like a giant, heavy puzzle. By Sunday night, my back was aching, my fingernails were dirty, and I was absolutely exhausted.
But as I sat there in the twilight, looking at that wall, I felt a deep sense of peace. That wall will probably be there long after I’m gone. It’s not perfect—there’s a gap on the left side that bugs me a little—but it’s mine. I know every stone in it. I remember the one that almost crushed my toe, and the one that fit so perfectly it felt like destiny. If I had hired someone to do it, I would have a perfect wall, but I wouldn’t have the memory of the work. I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing I could do it.
We don’t need to make everything hard. Life is difficult enough as it is. But every once in a while, try taking the long way home. Cook the meal that takes four hours. Fix the thing that’s broken. You might find that the “time you save” by being efficient isn’t nearly as valuable as the time you “waste” by being human.
It’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to struggle a little. In fact, that might be the whole point of the thing.